Final remarks last Sunday at GC: "Consider the great mercy and fairness of God, who, before the foundation of the world, provided a way to give temple blessings to those who died without a knowledge of the gospel. These sacred temple rites are ancient. To me that antiquity is thrilling and another evidence of their authenticity."

I know, I know, mopologists will say that the Masons derived their "temple rituals" from real ancient sources and that JS "restored" them, never mind that the Masons themselves will admit their stuff is based on other stuff from the Middle Ages and real masons, like the guys who built the great cathedrals of Europe (I mean, c'mon, the COMPASS and SQUARE?? Why in the hell could lazy-ass JS not simply change the symbols from symbols that are obviously CONSTRUCTION oriented!?)Anyway, the animal sacrifice and incense burning details of what actually went on the ancient Jewish temple are well-documented and NO mention of polygamy or BFD or sealings, and there's no good reason I can think of that they would have somehow been excised from ALL texts. And WHAT IN THE HELL DOES A TEMPLE RITUAL HAVE TO DO WITH THE "GOSPEL" ANYWAY?? I thought Jesus supposedly did away with the ancient way of doing things.

Wait, that's not even the main reason I posted this: the real reason is Nelson's first sentence: "Consider the great mercy and fairness of God, who, before the foundation of the world, provided a way to give temple blessings to those who died without a knowledge of the gospel."

Are you telling me that God has such a well thought-out plan, that, even though "There was no death before the Fall"...wait a second...even before he CREATED EARTH...he KNEW there was going to be death and even worse, he KNEW that 99.8% of the world never had heard of "the gospel", so that faithful tithe payers and their poor high school age kids would have to get dead-dunked from billions of humans? That's God's "great mercy and fairness"??

That's way worse than the lost 116 pages oh-but-there's-another-set-of-small-plates-that-covers-the-same-stuff-so-translate-those CYA fiasco.

So sorry. It has now been impressed on me, after prayerful study and careful ponderization, that God in his infinite wisdom was so cool and amazing to create TCOTPOTCOJCOLDS, so that the .2% of the world that is LDS has been blessed to hasten the Lord's coming by teaching the other billions the Truth of the Restored Gospel™.

The temple, and its associated bullshit, is simply a means of controlling gullible people. Build the temple shit up, make it something VERY special. Then, demand perfection to get in. Of course, nobody’s perfect, so then add the guilt—

“I’m in the temple unworthily. I’m a bad person. I don’t feel the spirit. I can’t understand why I have to give secret handshakes. It’s me, everyone else says it’s spiritual. I’m a wanker, so I don’t get it. It not that there’s something wrong, it’s me. I’m a wanker, I’m unworthy, I am a Mormon! The Mormon Boner.

I am so glad I learned all about it as a kid. Dude, that stuff just whacked and stupid. It takes years of conditioning to swallow. Even then, one of my aunts had to be sedated for her wedding reception as she was so freaked from it. I felt sorry I didn't clue her in before but it just never occurred to me. And what do you say? Uh, there are weird handshakes, a secret name and some guy kinna feels you up from the other side of a sheet? Oh, and you put this poncho thing on you and they rub oil on you? Oh, and then there is this whole part about killing yourself...

When you really think about it in any depth at all, you soon realize that the temple rituals are nothing but secrecy-protection contrivances...and the only thing whose secrecy is being protected is...you got it...the secrecy-protection devices (the secret names, secret handshakes, penalties for not protecting the secrets, etc.) What else is too secret/sacred to be "revealed" to outsiders? Answer: Nothing.

Everybody knows the temple movie stuff. It's not a secret and it's not particularly sacred (compared, for example, to taking the sacrament in sacrament meetings open to the public).

There's nothing in the wedding part that needs special secrecy. Basically, it's just adding the romantic notion of "forever" in place of "til death."

Sealings? No reason why you couldn't do that in sacrament meetings.

It's really just a big nothing burger masquerading as: "Somethin' so special we can't even talk about it!"

For only 10% of your annual income, you can find out for yourself just how special it is. Of course when you've foolishly parted with all that money only to find out that you've been punked and all you get for your money is a bunch of stupid handshakes, you may not want to admit that you've been that gullible and -- Emperor's Clothes redux -- you may be tempted to play along and help suck others into the scam.

"Oooh, yeeeah! It is THAT special! Sooo special, I can't talk about it."

Wally Prince Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> When you really think about it in any depth at> all, you soon realize that the temple rituals are> nothing but secrecy-protection contrivances...and> the only thing whose secrecy is being protected> is...you got it...the secrecy-protection devices> (the secret names, secret handshakes, penalties> for not protecting the secrets, etc.) What else> is too secret/sacred to be "revealed" to> outsiders? Answer: Nothing.

Originally, it was polygamy. Their secret, only revealed to certain faithful member men sex club that they had to keep from "the world" because it was illegal and disgusting.

That was the reason for all the stolen-from-the-masons secret handshakes and stuff. So that Joe and Brigham and a few others could have sex with other mens' wives and teenagers, having only a few trusted men know about it, and lie about it in public regularly.

In what context do the following best fit: secret handshakes, secret names, secret passwords, and gory death penalties for revealing the secrets to outsiders?

Do they best fit in the context of:

(A) A religious ceremony performed before an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful god? A ceremony whose constituent parts contain no actual content other than a movie (formerly a cheezy stage play) showing basic concepts derived from the Book of Abraham and which are no more sacred than the passing of the sacrament in sacrament meetings, as well as the performance of weddings and sealings, the contents of which are widely known anyway.

OR

(B) Initiation rituals of a secret society that actually engages in secret networking, secret giving and taking of favors by and among society members in positions of power (constables, judges, businessmen, politicians, etc.) who, on occasion are required to break or bend the law to do each other favors and advance each other's interests?

I think the latter is the obvious choice. But then my thinking is subject to limitations imposed by logic, common sense and facts. Mormons of course are not subject to such limitations.

The Mormon temple ceremonies/rituals make absolutely no sense in the way that they are currently applied. There is no need for secret/sacred handshakes. Are they secret from God? How could they possibly be misused by outsiders? Could outsiders hope to deceive God by using secret handshakes and names stolen from the Mormon temple? Ludicrous, right?

As the Mormon leaders have themselves proven by gradually subtracting parts previously deemed to have been "restored" from the perfect ancient ritual or otherwise deemed to be "essential," it turns out that there actually was no need for an "oath of vengeance," there was no need for disembowelment and throat slashing "penalty" gestures and there was no need for the "five points of fellowship" mystery-man curtain hugging event.

Similarly, there is no need for a "new name" (especially considering the fact that everyone going through on a particular day gets the same new name. There is no need for the apron, the shower cap, the sash or any of that nonsense.

It made minimal sense when Joseph Smith was initiating selected people into his super secret sex club of plural/spiritual wivery in Nauvoo. To outsiders, they persisted in claiming that nothing of the kind was going on. Inside the club, Joseph was giving his blessing (pretending to be giving God's blessing) to adultery and helping to arrange partner assignments. There was a need for secrecy, hence a need for oaths of secrecy, agreements to accept penalties for violating the oaths, and possibly the use of secret handshakes and secret names to identify themselves to other members when having interactions on the outside.

It is no coincidence that the Nauvoo temple rites, which are the basis of the modern Mormon temple nonsense, were introduced by Joseph Smith shortly after he was himself admitted to a Masonic lodge in Illinois.

Joseph's MormonCultofControl plus his ControlTemple definitely, as has been stated by other posters so well, was his answer to succeeding to keep secret, under threat of death, whatever in the hell he wanted to keep secret (Danites, Polygamy, Polyandry)/ Tell the people they are oh, so, so special to be chosen to be a temple member, that God loves them more than others, and you have a farce that, unfortunately, people fall for.

People are joiners first and foremost. We do not like to be left out. We often join before asking enough good questions or when we are too young to know better.

...their ordinances, why wouldn't a one-time ordinance "for all who died without an opportunity to hear and choose to receive the gospel" do the trick? Seems like it would work just fine.

Or two. One guy. One gal. One Milky Z. Duck priesthood guy. One one-time-does-all ordinance for all the dead ladies. And one for all the dead guys.

But heck, you don't even need to split it by gender. Just one does it all for everyone. Why not?

And before you start in on "but every individual needs an individual ritual for it to be effective and blah, blah, blah...need I remind you that the atonement, the mother of all ordinances, supposedly only needed one guy doing a one-time-covers-all routine?

Or...did I miss the part in the Bible where Pete comes up to Jesus with a 1000-foot long scroll of all the names of everyone who ever did and ever would live on earth and, putting his arm to the square, begin fast-talking like a coked-up, caffeinated auctioneer: "Jesus Horus Christ, having authority from...well...you...I hereby atone you for and on behalf of Grismelda Norgdag Snodgrass, who is not yet born, but will be, and I do this in the name of...well...you. Amen....Whoo! That was the first one, Jesus. Just bear with me. The list is pretty long, but just a few billion to go. And James and John are resting up to spell me for some of them. Thank God and...well...you...for your supernatural endurance and stuff."

Exactly! and I couldn't agree more about the dead dunking. One for all the ladies who have lived or will live on the earth, along with the men (but ladies first).

During the time I was a-sort-of-TBM I thought the need for dead dunking was NOTHING but profit-contrived-MormonCult busy work to keep the minions from asking too many questions ( which would be one).

Yep, I can just see gods (there has to be more than one just to keep up with the MormonCult's shenanigans) sitting in their comfy black executive chairs with their morning coffee viewing carefully the dead-dunks to see if the little toe was missed.

Stop! Send thunder! No, this calls for plagues! Plus, we all think it is about time to change to Catholic-sprinkling for baptism for these know-it-all Morgbots.....saves water and using so much Tylenol for us gods.

Oh wo is me for my terrible shortcomings on the temple work for all my ancestors. In my 40th generation back I have over 1.099 trillion ancestors (run 2 to the 40th power in your calculator) and thanks to the Correlation program I've been well indoctrinated to understand that I need to feel tremendous amount of guilt for my shortcomings on not having all the names of these ancestors from that generation (along with the ones before and more recent) submitted for their temple work so they can have a chance to be freed from their cells in Spirit Prison. On earth the criminal justice system offers parole for hardened criminals. But things are much tougher there where they have to stay put in Prison until this work is done and the Spirit World missionaries come preach to them. And of course its all my fault for all their prison-suffering when they could be enjoying paradise with the holy Boyd K. Packer and the rest of the sweet Saints.

If I did 99% of the work for that generation I'd still be required, thanks to this beloved Correlation program, to feel super amounts of guilt for the 10.99+ billion 40th generation ancestors of mine still wasting away in their Spirit Prison cells waiting for me to get off my rear end and find them as I do my genealogy work.